Maharashtra elections 2024: Maha Vikas Aghadi seeks to breach BJP’s Borivli bastion

Car dealers encroaching on a footpath in Borivli. Pic/Anurag Ahire

The Borivli Assembly constituency has long been a BJP stronghold, even during times when Congress held power at the state and Centre. This dominance has been broken only twice when Sanjay Nirupam and Govinda each won a Lok Sabha seat once. Since 1980, the BJP has never lost the Vidhan Sabha election in this constituency.

In this election, there was a brief issue with the candidacy of BJP's Sanjay Upadhyay, as former MP and MLA Gopal Shetty rebelled against the party. However, central and state leadership successfully diffused the crisis. It will be interesting to see how Sanjay Upadhyay performs in a seat expected to yield one of the highest lead margins in the Maharashtra Assembly election.

Sanjay Upadhyay's main opponent in the Borivli constituency is Sanjay Bhosle, a Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate. Key issues in the constituency include less to no space for walking and issues related to hawkers; lack of open spaces; illegal hawkers; rampant redevelopment and inadequate public transport.

Sanjay Upadhyay, BJP

What is your plan to curb the hawker menace?
This issue is not restricted to just Borivli but, the entire city. I plan to curb it by working with the local authorities. The menace is because of the presence of Rohingya and illegal Bangladeshis in the locality, which I plan to uproot.

How will you tackle last-mile connectivity and citizen safety?
BEST routes are overcrowded. An individual commuting to work from the extreme edge of Gorai to the railway station cannot afford an auto every day. I plan on increasing BEST frequency and also increasing the number of buses on these routes to make the commute affordable. There are also plans to increase the number of trains originating from Borivli by 150 more journeys in the coming two years.

What are your plans for tackling bad quality roads and pollution?
We are planning to increase the per-person tree ratio in the locality. I am planning to work with the RTO and traffic division to implement prepaid parking facilities in the constituency so that the general population does not get robbed by the post-paid parking operators.

How do you plan to address redevelopment, water and healthcare issues?
There is a huge issue of water loss in the BMC water supply. According to me, multiple roads in the city are being concretised and during this process, some water pipelines are getting damaged causing an increase in water loss. Speaking of healthcare facilities, there are no major hospitals between Vapi and Andheri causing many to rush either to Cooper or Kokilaben hospital. Our Mumbai North MP Piyush Goyal has started the construction of two hospitals in Borivali and those will be fully operational soon.

What are your thoughts on SRA schemes?
SRA and MHADA schemes help in the creation of reasonably affordable housing for the middle-class population. If there is a scope for the rich people to live in Mumbai, there should be a scope for everyone to live here. In fact, the household help working here have to travel from Vasai Virar just for work. BMC has also passed a proposal for affordable housing for such household workers.

Sanjay Bhosle, Shiv Sena (UBT)

How do you plan to curb the hawker menace?
Speaking of Borivli station, the location has always been a crowded place. We plan to create dedicated hawking zones to make sure that the roads remain hawker-free. Also, action against illegal hawkers is required and a major penalty needs to be imposed on those hawking illegally.

How will you tackle last-mile connectivity issues and citizen safety?
Being a local, I have faced issues sometimes while commuting from the station to Gorai. The BEST frequency at night is reduced. Speaking of citizen safety, there are multiple CCTVs at various locations but some of these are non-functional. We plan on getting these in working condition.

What are your plans on increasing green cover, tackling bad roads, and pollution?
I propose building a western freeway just like the eastern freeway to reduce the load on SV Road and WEH. Also, the Coastal Road will be operational in the near future which will reduce the load on the existing roadways. Apart from this, the commencement of BMC elections for corporators remains another top priority so that the local issues can be solved at the ward level.

How do you plan to address redevelopment, water and healthcare issues?
We plan to restart the maternity hospitals in the locality to cater to the general masses.

What are your thoughts on SRA schemes?
I strongly oppose the SRA scheme or any extension to the capping of the SRA schemes.